“All Of Our Heroes Are Bastards” collage art with leftovers from the zine
Lately, I’ve been listening to music a lot more and with more intention. I have grown frustrated with the stupid algorithm and I’ve started making my own damn playlists again…sometimes on the fly, often with prompting from someone who casually mentions something I might enjoy listening to. Occasionally, I will dip my toe into music podcasts to figure out what everyone else is swimming in these days. Every once in a while, I’ll latch onto a random algorithmic miracle and go off on a tangent. But every spring, I revisit “Key Lime Pie.”
Since it’s been approximately 40 springs that this has been my ritual, certain memories and patterns emerge from this practice. I remember even the first spring. I believe I had either just turned 19 or 20, and I was experiencing the crashing and burning of what had been a (temporary) utopia. I could feel myself teetering on the edge of catastrophe, combined with needing to shake the winter blues. It was unseasonably warm in Chicago, and a sunny day walk was exactly what I needed. The things I saw on that walk are still visually implanted in my brain, as is the way the air smelled, and the particular quality of the sunlight. I can even feel the temperature of the still-cool air as I walked under the El tracks on Belmont, emerging, squinting, to be embraced by the warming sun.
I even remember the spring 10 years later, when I related this story to a depressed lover. I described the feeling of emerging into sunshine after the somber grey of winter and gasping at the stark beauty of it all. As we listened to Key Lime Pie together, he steepled my smaller fingers in his hand and told me I was his key lime pie. I loved him, but was secretly terrified of that responsibility, having lost a depressed friend to suicide 9 key lime pies ago.
Spring is that time of possibilities after the limitations and restrictions of winter have been removed. Camper Van Beethoven perfectly captures that feeling on this album. Particularly in one of my favorite stanzas of all time, from “June”:
And I wrote you this letter ’cause the clothes were hung on the line And the crows flew out of the field and up into the sky I’m lying here in the station Stretching out on the tracks Are all the possible places that I might arrive
Springtime reminds us that we can rebuild an entire world, even in the exhaustion of the aftermath of apocalypse. Even when, in the depths of the cold and the darkness, it felt like it would be forever before the sun would break through the clouds. Even if at times it felt like it never would.
I think of all of the other springtimes in my life, and all of the various (physical and metaphysical and existential and hypothetical) places I have arrived in every season of my life so far, and I can’t help but feel like a big old clumsy but faithful puppy, tongue-lollingly drunk on hope, tripping after butterflies and falling in love with tree trunks like all of the springtimes of my past in one endlessly looping filmstrip clacking through my brain like an old-timey projector.
Who needs heroes, when we have each other…and springtime.
P.S. If you haven’t seen the secret agent yet. I highly recommend. It’s a long fucking movie, but it is truly beautiful. And there’s that scene where Armando is driving with Fernando and talking about Fernando’s mother. Wagner somehow is able to convey that tightness of face, and the subtlety of false optimism and positivity that is so frequently required of parents who are experiencing adversity. You can see the almost-tears and feel the subtle catch in his voice. It’s quite lovely. It’s very artful acting.
Link
Only one link this week, as I’ve been busy herding turkeys around, listening to music, living in the past, and not reading so much news.
Oh yay. Yet another opportunity for politicians and their enablers to grift!
“The money flows well beyond large state agencies, to small and obscure agencies most people (including myself) have never heard of. The Point Comfort Police Department in Texas — a town of fewer than 700 people — has a base agreement of $167,525 to supply nine task force officers, plus an additional $5,000 salary modification. The Key Colony Beach Police Department in Florida is getting $119,000 for a single officer once you add its $107,500 base award to an $11,500 salary supplement. The Coward Police Department in South Carolina, also serving a town of roughly 700, has a base award of $107,520 for one officer, with another $15,000 modification layered on top.” – https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-ices-bounty-hunters?publication_id=7677&post_id=192048723
Three Spanish black turkeys: Ursula (hen), Octavia (hen), and Gerald (tom)
It’s the equinox-ish. And what better way to celebrate balance than by throwing my entire life completely off balance?
My mother had a saying: no more pets or kids. In my adult life, post children, fully in charge of the number of pets and/or children I am allowed to acquire, I am refusing to learn this lesson. Instead, in the midst of a potential world war, on top of the teetering tower of the rest of the current spate of atrocities, I choose chaos. In the form of turkeys.
It started with the roosters. Oh sure! I told my housemate, when she inquired about helping my broody hen hatch out some chicks. Who am I to deprive a caring human the experience of midwifing a clutch? Of course, it’s all fun and games until 3/4 of the baby chicks end up being roosters. As a result, after three years of maintaining and/or slowly decreasing the size of the flock by attrition, I have been thrown fully back into chicken math over here, folks. Plotting to hatch more (hopeful) hens to balance the rooster ratio, my housemate has loaded up the incubator with a variety of DEFINITELY fully fertilized eggs. We all know how this story ends, but, again, what kind of ghoul would I be to deprive a human of this particular kind of joy?
Her enthusiasm gave me a mild fever that spiked when she mentioned a friend had a trio of Black Spanish turkeys she was looking to sell. Two hens, and a tom, about seven months old. Y’all? Y’ALL?!?! I have been looking for a lady friend for Tom, unsuccessfully, for YEARS. I figured maybe I could take all three in and rehome the tom, or maybe the tom and one of the hens, if they didn’t mesh with the flock, or with Tom.
Well, they seem to be meshing pretty well with the flock of chickens, but Tom and the new tom (who is called Gerald. AKA Jerry the tom, just to make it even more confusing) are only interested in fisticuffs.
So, I have basically been coming up with different solutions every day to keep the toms apart. At first, we had a dog crate in the middle of the yard that we covered with a blanket. Gerald the Tom lived there at night and for part of the day, while Tommy strutted around and around, taunting him. Completely ignoring the hens, but strutting and preening and taunting the tom. Sigh.
It didn’t take long for the toms to start tangling with each other through the bars of the crate, so I let Tom out of the yard to strut around the driveway. However, the minute he wasn’t being supervised, he strutted back over near the yard and got tangled up in the fence. I found him wrapped in poultry netting, taking a pummeling from Jerry. Poor Tommy. This, of course, would not do.
To tell you the truth, Tom doesn’t even seem the slightest bit interested in any of those turkeys. However, by this time, Ursula has already endeared herself to us by quickly figuring out how to escape the pen through a hole in the fence, following us up on the porch and sitting next to us, chirping happily, waiting to be petted like a dog. And, though not quite as sociable, Octavia is inquisitive, intelligent, and sweet; and Gerald is completely non-aggressive – even in the midst of his Tom-pummeling, he relented to being picked up and carried away with no argument. All three of them figured out how to put themselves up in the coop with the chickens within three days of living here. In other words, I am smitten with the lot of them, and will simply have to find a solution.
Before the snow returned, I was herding Tommy into the back yard with Ursula (who followed like a dog, singing me her happy little chirpy song the whole way) for the day, then herding them back to the coop at night, after putting Gerald back into his crate. Which is a lot, and not sustainable when I’m working until 9 PM.
I could try to leave the turkeys in the back yard, but the problem with this plan, long-term, is Wilbur. While Wilbur is not aggressive, he has chased and pounced on chickens who have flown back into the yard before. I’m not sure how much of that was caused by Lulu’s insane prey drive, or his own. When I have Wilbur out on a leash in the yard, he pays no attention to the birds, but I fear if they startle him, it may trigger something. If he were to chase down Tommy, I can’t be certain who would win that fight. Have you ever seen a turkey talon? And did you know they also fight with their wings? Those wing feathers are like daggers!
When the storm hit, I just set up a crate on the porch for Tommy and he’s our temporary porch turkey now. My brain is still churning a myriad of other solutions, but it’s back to work for me tomorrow, so Tommy might remain a porch turkey for the forseeable future. It’s a pretty big porch, and he’s a fairly sedentary bird, so he should be ok. In the meantime, I’m bringing Wilbur out on the porch, leashed, to get everyone acquainted and used to each other while I scheme various living arrangements.
As of now, my plan is to build some sort of aviary back there for Tom and maybe Ursula, as well as a few of my older hens who really don’t deserve to have to live with a bunch of roosters. For crying out loud, I was out in the yard the other day, and a harried Little Nellie literally flew a hundred yards and landed on my forearm like a falcon just to get away from one of the horny offspring THAT SHE RAISED!
It will be really nice if I can train the chase/pounce tendencies out of Wilbur so I can give him a job as poultry protector instead of my 24/7 shadow. So, that’s what I’ll probably be doing all spring/summer when I should be gardening.
Anyway, maybe my mom wasn’t right about EVERYTHING, and what good is balance in a perpetually imbalanced world. I choose tur-chaos!
A tom Royal Palm turkey named Tom
Links:
(minimal links because I’ve been herding turkeys all week)
For the past few months…but the past week more intensely, I have been immersed in my own personal history. I have been working on a zine that has been in progress for TWELVE YEARS. A love story to my favorite city, Chicago. The place where I grew up, and where a lot of fond memories reside. Some not-so-fond, as well, but I have been thankful to discover that none of the pain that resides there is sharp. I fear it may make a dull narrative, but the process is delightful for me. It’s like visiting with old friends; some of whom still exist in my present life, but many I have lost along the way.
The zine in its current state is about 72 pages digest-sized, and divided into four distinct sections, representing eras of my life when I have moved/returned to Chicago. There were many more returns in between those recorded here, and the eras chosen for the zine were largely random. They represent a pretty good sample of my life. First – my move into my first apartment with a gaggle of punks; Second – my return to Chicago after fleeing to Lubbock to escape the misery of the city; Third – I return to Chicago a parent of two young children after my mom is diagnosed with breast cancer, and we visit all of the museums and eat a lot of pizza; Fourth – I return alone for my mother’s memorial, and lessons learned bringing me up to the present time.
I have given the draft to some trusted friends to review and make sure I don’t say anything that would embarrass me or any of the (totally fictional) people (fictionally) represented in the pages. I’m nervous, because I talk about my sexuality in a way I’ve never publicly discussed. I also just really love that city and all of the folks I knew & still know, and I don’t ever want to say anything that would make them feel like they were anything other than deeply cherished in my memory. I will probably be writing stories about it and them for the rest of my life. I am kind of excited to share them with you when it’s all ready to go.
But now it is time to be in the present, such as it is, and make plans to keep our neighbors and loved ones safe. I can’t talk about making a zine without mentioning the Prairieland Defendants, so I guess we’ll move on to…
Links:
The creative and highly theoretical claims by the state around Prairieland risk producing precedents. The theory that the whole demo was bait — for which the indictments themselves give no supporting evidence — is but one. The mere use of Signal is recast as evidence of criminal enterprise, while deleting someone from a group chat has become “material support for terrorism.” Fireworks are “explosives.” A home where friends congregate is a “staging area.” Dressing in black with a face covering is “designed . . . to aid and abet those members engaged in illegal acts.” The defendants are accused of possessing “insurrectionary materials called ‘zines,’” and defendant Daniel “Des” Rolando is charged with “corruptly concealing a document or record and conspiracy to conceal documents” for transporting a box of them. –https://jacobin.com/2026/02/prairieland-trump-domestic-terrorism-ice
“Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot,” -Jack Kerouac
The waning light and spent goldenrod
I waited until too late in the day to have my first porch-sit of the year, but I didn’t let that stop me. Jones was like “Where you been? I’ve been out here all winter holding this whole shitshow down!”
Critical porch-sitting supplies
And he really has. If there is one thing I have learned since moving here, it’s the importance of a good barn cat.
My demanding companion
In answer to his question, I’m having Tune Church all day with this Flux album. While I liked the other Flux of Pink Indians records in theory. In practice, there are only so many times one can endure the heavy feedback and painful moaning in The Fucking Pricks Treat us Like Cunts, or the straight-ahead britanarchopunk aesthetic of Neu Smell or Strive To Survive, Causing The Least Suffering Possible. While they all have their merits, they just aren’t heavy rotation material to me. On the other hand, I have literally been listening to Uncarved Block all damn day today.
Lyrically, the album wavers between cynicism and resolve. The songs wrestle with the concepts of facing and overcoming our individual insignificance in the struggle, and are often (intentionally?) disjointed and contradictory. Like free verse. Heavily influenced by Taoism, no concrete answers are provided.
And like free verse AND Taoism, meanings proliferate and dynamically rearrange themselves depending on your mood on any given listen. Even the song order is unclear, as the album version does not have a clear “Side 1” and “Side 2” label. The lyrics on the back of the LP appear in random order.
Song list and lyrics on the back of the LP
The opening, “The Value of Nothing,” is a percussive instrumental with some soundscaping that fades into a saxophone sample and slightly less percussive beats. It’s all basically foreplay before “Youthful Immortal” bursts onto the scene like spring after a long Maine winter. “Emerging from a long dark tunnel / to be blinded by the bright light / love can be so easily distorted / when for survival forced to fight.“
“Just Us” creates another percussive bridge with dubs and effects and echoes…
“Children Who Know,” juxtaposes the “same bigotry breaking into war” with the “same people nurtur[ing] bud into bloom.” and the “Same Children playing revolution in the park” while “artistry just collects the fragments into manageable chaos.” and culmiinates in the anthemic “I cling desperately to my last two beliefs: Firstly – I believe nothing and in nothing. Secondly – I believe everything and in everything.” And “Martyrdom offers nothing. I love this world and my life upon it. I grasp the hand of happiness whenever it is offered.”
I can’t express enough how much it has meant to me throughout my life to be exposed to artists and people who fully understand the joy of the world AND the pain of the world. It brings to mind this poster from the band’s previous labelmate (and 15-year old Bjork’s first band) KUKL
“Footprints in the Snow” refers to transience of life, as well as of the way we show up while we are alive. Like the rest of the album, the song presents contradictory thoughts and weaves them together in a collage of repeating words and rhythms. It is a song that is sadly appropriate for our time, as spring approaches and we are still sending soldiers off to war.
The entire album is sonically recapped in “Nothing is not done,” which then leads into the monotone chant of “The Stonecutter,” which acts as an footnote to the entire album. Warning “I slept with God but discovered, you cannot rescue whom you follow.” And closing with “Looking into mirrors, denying my reflection / while the ripples in the pond radiate further // Refusals or demands, there is a difference. So many words we did not say.”
Ain’t that the truth.
The inner album sleeve.
Anyway. That album felt important to listen to today. So I pretty much didn’t do anything other than that.
And then the sun came out and melted most of the snow and I sat out on my porch and watched the chickens put themselves to bed, and then I went out there in the gross muck and shut them all up.
As part of my normal seasonal solipsism, I am thinking about how I want to spend my time as the days lengthen and the weather begins to warm. I read back over this blog, trying to sort out what the heck I’m even doing here and whether it’s worthwhile to me to keep doing it. I enjoyed going back in time and spelunking through old blog posts. Criminy, I’m old. And also, I have done some cool stuff that I’m pretty proud of.
In general lately, I find myself sifting through personal data to figure out what to get rid of and what to keep. Recordings, photos, writing, art…Not that I’m planning on going anywhere anytime soon, but when I do go, I don’t want anyone to have to deal with like a jump scare of a random erotic journal entry or me saying something regrettable about someone in a moment of venting frustration. In an attempt to prevent this from happening, I have a project I am slowly working on for the rest of my life of transcribing what I think may be of interest to the kids or whoever, and then tearing up that journal and making it into a collage.
So far, I have completed one journal. I have like 89 thousand journals, so I better start getting on that immortal life thingy.
A journey (journal?) of 1000 miles begins with one step?
And while we’re talking in aphorisms, isn’t it all just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, anyway?
Wilbur can hear me…he’s just not listening.
I guess when it comes down to it, I just want the historical record to be clear that I was a human being who was on the right motherfucking side of history. And also, I had pretty good taste in music, and some really nice friends. Oh, and my kiddos are pretty neato, too. And I raised up a very good dog.
What am I even going on about anymore? I think I’ve been Daylight Savingsed. Yeah. That’s what I’ll blame it on.
February in summary
Oh, so also I’ve decided since we’re all going to be forced to live through historical fucking times forever, I might as well make record of notable events here in the blog again. You’ll have to give me a moment to re-develop my witty political banter and my link sources so I can actually find useful information.The good news is I’ll always put it at the end of my post so if you are all newsed out, you can just skip it.
Listening to the news
I am really really really REALLY going to try to maintain a weekly post schedule. But I don’t want to say that out loud, because saying it out loud is the kiss of death!
Linky Links
Before we get to the wretched present, please allow me to indulge in some memory lane stuff:
This interview with one of the guys from Flux of Pink Indians was nice, though this particular guy didn’t have a lot to do with the Uncarved Block LP.
I was recently reminded of this interview of Marc Ruvolo on Jughead’s basement, and enjoyed hearing them talk about the Chicago scene from the 80’s.
Last week, I watched Belfast, and will probably watch it again. The child’s POV was intriguing, and the sparse dialog. I might write more about it later. I’m trying to spend more time with the media I consume, rather than devouring one movie after another and not taking any time to think about or process what I’ve seen.
Anyway – on to the present. Such as it is…
“For all the fretting about AI, an autonomous machine is already in charge.”
“A court record reviewed by 404 Media shows privacy-focused email provider Proton Mail handed over payment data related to a Stop Cop City email account to the Swiss government, which handed it to the FBI.”
“The other thing I’m thinking about is relational credibility. The people who’ve taken me seriously over the years when I’ve challenged them are people who know from my actions that I’m invested in their well-being and survival. Even if they think I’m completely wrong about prisons or policing or whatever else, they know I want them safe, I want them alive, I want them to be okay.
If what’s established between us is only that I’m the person telling you you’re wrong, that’s a thin foundation. But if there’s some trust there, if I’ve demonstrated care, then there’s more room for someone to sit with discomfort instead of immediately defending against it. And I’ve gotten more mindful over time about how I’m positioned in those conversations.
Have I given this person a reason to trust me? Am I actually in relationship with them in a way that allows for some vulnerability? Because not everyone is, and not every confrontation is mine to initiate or see through.”
First – I owe y’all an apology. I’m MONTHS late on the zine grab bags. It’s almost cliche by this point for me to say I was hoping to finish that damn Chicago zine that has been sticking in my craw for like, oh…12 years or so? Maybe even more? That I PROMISED MYSELF I would get done in time for this mailing and. just. did. not…though I DID make progress on it. I finally just had to say fuck it so I can get this mailing out to y’all because there is so much going on and so many zines to share. And also I miss y’all.
I started the year with the very best of intentions to put more energy into this project. However, like many of you, multiple of my communities are currently under threat, or helping defend neighbors who are under threat, of fascist harm and/or death. So. There’s that.
Like, there keep being all of these insane reasons for zines to be late. I should really write a book about them. “Sorry my zine was late, but it seemed silly to write about time management, specifically the issue about leisure time, when everyone is organizing to keep their neighbors safe from fascist thugs.” My skills and talents have been needed elsewhere. And I am thankful that I have modest skills and talents to give. Maybe I’ll write a zine about that some day.
I keep typing sentences here and then erasing them, because I have so many conflicting thoughts about literally everything right now. For example, I know logically AND spiritually AND strategically that creativity is a necessity in these times, but also creativitying out loud seems self-indulgent. So I have been mostly doing private art, and almost always visual art, which I am not skilled at, and therefore am self-conscious about sharing because OMFG if I am going to be taking up space with my art, it damn well at least better be GOOD art. Whatever the fuck that means. hahaha.
And please understand that rule applies ONLY to me. By all means, if you want to create “bad” art and share it, I will be all over that shit! I live on a steady diet of ironic memes, so I would DEVOUR anything with an ounce of sincerity.
Anyway, I don’t fucking know, y’all. Just please know that I stuffed every single one of these envelopes with love and appreciation. I am so thankful to have this tiny audience for my way-too-intermittent ramblings, and I truly hope you all enjoy the meager gifts I am bestowing upon you. You all…WE all. WE ALL deserve so much more.
I’m going ahead and making this post public, and cross-posting to my blog, even though it’s referencing paid subscriber benefits.
If you can’t afford to pay for membership, and you want a zine grab bag, please reach out! I’m happy to trade or just send you things you might like.
Also, if you have friends who might want to be paid members…I think I have capacity for like 10 more subscribers without feeling overwhelmed, so please do refer folks.
Oh, and hey – if you make a zine and want to trade or send some for me to distribute or whatever, that’s cool too. When I have money, I like to support whoever I can…and I always like to hear about whatever y’all or your loved ones are up to.
I do everything simple and slow here. I don’t ever want to not be able to write little letters and stick little stickers all over everything. And I do my best to make sure all of the zines I share are made by real live human beings.
Please consider subscribing to my Patreon. I post on an erratic schedule about the various goings-on here at Unruly Farm, as well as sending out packages of curated printed material CREATED BY HUMANS. I even send hand-written letters and artwork that I make while I’m dissociating at my job. ❤
Images of Wiring Dept. covers. On the left, Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth. On the right, Michael Franti from the Beatnigs.
I can still draw a perfect picture in my mind of the box I left behind in that ramshackle un-air conditioned house in Austin, located less than a block from the access road to i-35, behind an auto body shop. The box sits atop the broken washing machine, and is as dilapidated from being moved cross country multiple times as the house surrounding it. That’s my memory of it, anyway, and how it used to be. Likely by now that house has been razed to the ground and converted into modern condos that look like two shipping containers humping, and the box has been long thrown in the trash after I left it there in my haste to leave behind the smell of rodent urine in the oven and my failed relationship with the boy I moved cross country to live with.
I’m thinking about this box because I believe, regretfully, that it was the final resting place of the letters sent to me by an influential zinester in my formative high school years. The letters were penned in perfect elementary schoolteacher blocky print, and contained quotes and stories about revolutionary people and strategies, mixed in with stories of a houseless person the author met in a laundromat, or a conversation had in passing with someone asking for spare change on the sidewalks of San Francisco.
The letters filled me with hope, and it seems fitting that the author’s pseudonym, Eric Cope, sounds like hope when you say it fast.
At the time we were communicating, Eric was a musician and label owner in San Francisco who also published a large-format, uniquely designed zine called Wiring Dept. I reached out to the label, Insight Records, when a “punker than thou” friend of mine urged me to stop listening to Joy Division and listen to a cooler, more underground band that sounded a lot like Joy Division, but had way better punk rock credibility. This band was Glorious Din – Eric’s band.
I remember ordering “Closely Watched Trains,” Glorious Din’s second LP, from Insight. I can’t remember if I ordered the other albums on the label that are currently in my collection, including the compilation “To Sell Kerosene Door to Door” and Spahn Ranch’s “Thickly Settled,” but I loved them all. The label and the bands on it shared a certain folk sensibility that was rare in punk at the time, and the aesthetic of the label and the zine were woven into the way the releases were designed and distributed.
Eric wrote a personal letter and included it in the package, along with Wiring Dept. And I was intrigued. While it was common for label owners, distributors, and artists to communicate personally with their “fans” – Insight and Wiring Dept. had a polished look to them that made them seem somewhat inaccessible in that way. While the zine contained a lot of interesting revolutionary rhetoric, I’m not sure I would have been as drawn to it as I was after hearing stories from the perspective of the artist himself. In spite of the admonishment of punk to “kill yr idols” and not to engage in hero worship, I felt somewhat intimidated by the fact that this accomplished artist was interested in sending multi-page letters to a bored kind in high school who only vaguely understood the sociopolitical landscape from which Cope emerged.
I can’t say Eric *introduced* me to revolutionary politics. I’d already earned my degree in imperialist and colonialist history from Punk Rock University. However, he was the first to introduce me to the breadth of leftist politics, both in his letters and in Wiring Dept. In an issue of Wiring Dept, featuring Michael Franti (then of The Beatnigs – currently, yes, THAT Michael Franti!) the words of Malcolm X, George & Jonathan Jackson, Kwame Nkrumah, Bobby Sands, Steve Biko, Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, Ericka Huggins, Bob Marley, and Silvia Plath hug up against interviews and reviews of bands like Big Black, Stickdog, Sonic Youth, Andrew Worsdale, Barnacle Choir, Comic Book Opera, Adrian Sherwood, Systems Collapse, and Wire. All of this was interspersed with photography, art by Sue Coe, and short articles about Israeli Imperialism, El Salvador, Indigenous Americans, and Nicaragua. It was a lot of information packed into a large format with striking graphics and typesetting, and it opened me up to an entire world of political philosophy that began with my introduction to Taoism, continued through my discovery of the Clash, was furthered by my introduction to anarcho-punk, and became solidified by pen friendships with several remarkable people and their zines. Particularly, Mr. Cope.
Almost as clearly as the image of that dilapidated box, I have an image of myself as a teenager. I’ve stayed home from school to read and write letters, which was a fairly common occurrence through my high school years. I hear the sound of the front storm door suction as it opens to receive a stack of mail that is too large for the mailbox, and the whoosh of the aluminum blinds against the door as the storm door closes against it.
*****
I read up on Eric Cope when I started writing this article, and it seems he continued to lead an interesting life long after we ceased communication. From the articles I read, he’s STILL doing some pretty cool stuff. It makes me glad. I have two issues of Wiring Dept. in the Crustacean Zine Library that are old and damaged and falling apart. I absolutely treasure them, and wish I had preserved them better, but I was too busy reading and learning and gaining inspiration from them to care. If ANYONE has any copies of this zine that they would like someone to care for, please consider sending them to me. I promise, I will cherish them.
I’m watching spring slowly seep into the landscape. Winter was so hard, and the warmer weather, along with the life it brings, is more than welcome. I’m absorbing. Breaking icy shackles. And at the same time, suddenly so many of the loose ends of my life have managed to come fully apart and in so doing somehow managed to bring everything back together again.
I feel like I say this every year around springtime…and also in autumn…but I am so glad to be living in a geographical region that has all four seasons. While I love the brutal beauty of winter – I am always pleased when spring arrives…and I’ve never been a fan of summer, except for the fact that it ends in autumn…but it’s the liminal seasons that have my heart. There is an energy – a moving towards something – lacking in the full stops of summer and winter.
And it is in this season of spring that I am emerging from a mourning period of sorts. I put my youngest little birdy on an airplane away from here at the end of March…it feels like forever ago and just yesterday…and am learning how to have life with an empty nest. It’s something I have needed for a very long time. In spite of my fierce love and adoration for my children, I am a person who requires a great deal of solitude, and I have had none for a very long time. Until now. And I am definitely soaking in it. Wondering if I will EVER want to live with anyone ever again. Woe is the anti-social socialist!
Maybe I’m just not paying attention, but I don’t remember seeing a lot of people talking about how fucking painful it is when your last one moves out and you are taking those first few steps of single-nonparenting. For the first few weeks, I broke down several times a day in a heap of “I miss my babies.” Bereft was the word I was feeling. The last few cold weeks of winter were appropriate, but every once in awhile there was an unexpected sunshiny spring day…or week. I could feel normal mostly, until a certain song came on. Or until I encountered something that he left behind (which is much.) When I cleared off the side of the counter where he piled all of his random drawings. It’s the worst kind of breakup, because there are no sad love songs about your kids moving out. That would be creepy. But I definitely felt a great deal of grief and loss. And unlike when my eldest moved out, I didn’t have another child here to distract me.
But I have the dogs. And the cats. And the chickens. And the turkey. And a couple of nice friends…and projects here and there that I spend time on. I’m slowly figuring out how to meal plan for one, and trying to save money on food. The garden is still going to be a bit sad this year. I’m working some of that “single mama budgetary magic” on some unexpected cash inflow…seeding several different little things that need addressing…hoping to stay afloat.
Over the past few years, I feel like I have disparaged motherhood a great deal. The experience of it, that is…not those who undertake it. They were difficult years, and perhaps my ire was misplaced. Perhaps motherhood is a season, and as such is meant to prepare you for the coming season, as well as use what you learned from the season before. I hope with all my heart that my children weather well out there, flying around the world on their own. Being their mom has been occasionally brutal, but infinitely beautiful. Like all challenging experiences, motherhood has made me who I am, and I am cool with that.
The last couple of days have had grey moments that portend winter, and I have switched my focus to hardcore cozy prep. The house has, for the most part, been fully reorganized. Tidy, it is not, but there aren’t things spread all over the floor of the mudroom and dining room, waiting to be put up. Those items are either in a general area where they will remain, or up on shelves to be sorted during the winter months. This month, I am focusing on my inner health and the outdoor spaces of my home. The coop has been insulated – it just needs some roosts and additional bedding, the front and back porches need to be cleared and garden supplies stored so they can be maintained, cleaned, oiled, and readied for next year. Garden beds need to be cleared and covered. Because my harvest has been minimal to non-existent, whatever vegetables I receive from farmer friends, the CSA and farmers markets are stowed away in various dark places or prepped, bagged, and frozen. Last month we made a big vat of chili and put away half, and this month we are preparing a vat of pasta sauce to have in the freezer. Little baggies of cabbage and onions and jalapenos are frozen for use in the endless bowls of ramen that will be consumed in the coming months.
This will be my third winter here, and I’m finally starting to understand the rhythm of the seasons, along with the countless mini-rhythms that spin off from them. Yesterday’s micro-rhythm was the changing of the bedlinens from the slick bamboo sheets I splurged on when I was temporarily wealthy to flannels and my faux-down comforter in a crisp duvet that makes a satisfying crinkly noise when I situate myself under it. It does such an efficient job at trapping my body heat that my midnight forays to the bathroom end with a satisfied “ahhhhhh” once I’m back in my nest. I’m swapping my house crocs for fuzzy slippers and considering getting more long-sleeved shirts with thumbholes cut out. I have supplementary heaters for my bedroom, office, and living room so I can cozy up in those spaces without moving the house thermostat up over 55.
When I look out of my windows, the grey sky is beautifully contrasted by the flame-colored leaves and still-green grass of the field across the street. Except for the asters and the as-yet-to-bloom daisies, the wildflowers in the yard have all gone to seed, and this year I discovered the inadvertent genius of letting the weeds grow around the coop and yard, as I watch the birds harvest the seeds. They leave the grain I throw out for them on the ground, but because the barn cats have been so effective at keeping the rodents away, it remains for them to peck at the next day. I’m glad for this brief reprieve from the pressures of feed costs, because winter is coming and feed is necessary and expensive in winter. I’m slowly adding protein-rich supplements to the scratch I throw out for them, and have set aside outdated grains and flour from my kitchen so I can make warm gruel as a winter treat for the flock. Next year the goal will be to have worm farms started in the spring so we have plenty of fresh mealworms and soldier fly larvae in the winter.
I have worked really hard these past two months to create a space for myself to relax in this home of mine. I am hoping to spend the cold seasons further sifting through and organizing, but also taking time to relax and enjoy my home with puzzles, good food, lots of reading, and snuggling in the big bed with my journals and planners.
It was 20 years ago when we spent the winter in Chicago after the birth of my youngest son. Unmoored and on the precipice of my life as a single parent, I ran away from home (to home.) The baby was relentlessly touch-hungry and spent all of his time attached to my body until we discovered the magic of the “vibro chair” into which I would buckle the clingy infant and proclaim “Set the vibro chair on stun!” before luxuriating in 20-30 glorious minutes of showering…or walking in the snow…or napping, maybe, unencumbered.
Before moving here, that was the last time I spent a significant amount of time in winter. My memories of the season before that are all disjointed, like snapshots from various periods in my life. The winter of my 25th birthday when I brought a boyfriend with me and he spent the entire time drunk and giggling, wearing woolen socks to the symphony. G & M threw me a big bday party and S’s girlfriend made spinach artichoke tip in a bowl made of bread and I still remember how delicious it was.
I remember snow on the ground when visiting my favorite pizza place with my mom when I would visit and in a blink I remember downtown in the little town where I lived – scurrying around buying gifts for everyone. I remember the winter the snow was dense and I was halfway to Clark Street when he yelled from Wellington “I LOVE YOU, L!”
I think it’s because holidays and birthdays that this time of year is so memorable, but also because the bite of the cold and the clarity in the air paints the brightest pictures.
Last year was our first year in Maine, and I have enjoyed reacquainting myself with winter. I’m taking things slow, but have been more present outdoors this year than last, due to the fact that I wake up every morning between 6-7 to let the chickens out. I try to get out to check on the birds on my lunch break, but by the time I’m off from work, it’s dark outside. A missed connection. If I’m not careful, the days sort of blend, one into another, without that shot of shifting landscapes to differentiate.
I just now realized the daylight hours are what I’m missing. The seasons here are so much more clearly defined than they were in Texas. I think I realized it last year, but this year I’m really FEELING it. I need to remind myself to linger outside in the mornings, and be intentional about going out on the weekends. I am always rewarded when I do.
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